Notre Dame leaves Chapel Hill with a 37 to 26 victory over North Carolina but there is plenty Marcus Freeman and Chris Ash will point to that needs to be cleaned up as the Fighting Irish improve to 5-0 on the season.
One area where the Irish are almost certainly quite happy is with a running game that is getting better every week and has turned into a group that dominated the second half. The running backs chewing up yards and clocking in the second half, especially, is a massive reason why Notre Dame isn’t talking about a much more stressful game on Saturday.
Once the rain really started coming down in the second half, Notre Dame decided it wasn’t going to mess with throwing the football when the game was within two scores. In fact, the Irish decided it was time to take over after the Tar Heels returned the second-half opening kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown to make the score 21-20, Golden Domers.
From that point on, the Irish running game set the tone as Jonaz Walton, Aneyas Williams and Nolan James Jr. all showed that when they need to, they can carry the game. The three headed-monster of South Bend finished the game with 22 carries and 108 yards. Funnily enough, the only rushing touchdown of the game for the Golden Domers came from quarterback CJ Carr.
Of the three running backs, the big story of the day was true freshman Walton. He tallied __ for __ yards and logged the first 100-yard rushing game of his Notre Dame career. The performance would have been impressive all its own, but it was even more so considering it seemed to come out of nowhere. Coming into Saturday, Walton had totaled 16 carries for 108 yards in the team’s first four games.
It’s not as though either Williams or James were ineffective. Both finished averaging more than 5.3 yards per carry and helped make the second half almost entirely about Notre Dame’s run game.
One big exception to the “rule” of Saturday being all about keeping the ball on the ground stood out. Jordan Faison, who was already leading the team in catches when the day began, hauled in a whopping 8 receptions for 132 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Saturday was far from a perfect day for Notre Dame. The defense, in particular, struggled to stop an uneven North Carolina offense. But in the win, the Fighting Irish may have found a brand new weapon in Jonaz Walton and finally saw a go-to wide receiver emerge in Jordan Faison.
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